Finding Your Feelings
by the-lady-luka
Summary: Follow-up to "No Name Needed": Daria trys to sort out her confused emotions, all the while having to ignore Jane's misguided but well-intentioned matchmaking and the skeptical opinions of everyone else. (rated for possible language)
1. The Last Time I Knew You

Finding Your Feelings  
  
The Last Time I Knew You  
  
(This does conflict with the series' version of the Daria/Tom breakup, but I'd always imagined it as a more peaceful understanding between them)  
  
They were sitting in the pizza place they always sat in. Across from each other, the way they always had. In fact, to an outsider, it would appear that nothing was wrong.  
  
Both of them desperately wished to be an outsider again.  
  
"Look, I..." Tom started to say.  
  
"Tom, I..." Daria spoke at the same time.  
  
There was nervous laughter, mostly to break the silence.  
  
"Go ahead, Tom."  
  
"It's really nothing important... you go ahead."  
  
Daria sighed. "No. Really. I..." she paused, and her harsh deadpan softened, just a little, so most other people wouldn't even have noticed, "I'd like to know what's on your mind."  
  
"I don't quite know what I was about to say." He admitted. "I was just trying to break the silence."  
  
"Yeah. I know."  
  
"You seem quieter than usual, lately." He observed, just a little too casually.  
  
"I could say the same for you, Tom. It's not like either of us have been terribly verbose lately." He looked up at her. She was staring raptly at the pizza. Probably to avoid looking at him. No, not even probably: definitely. He could see her watching him out of the corner of her eye, like she always did when she got too nervous.  
  
"Do you think that might be a problem?" he tried to keep his tone casual, but she caught the implication. Her head snapped up, and he saw a hint of surprise flicker over her eyes, but her overall expression was unchanged.  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
"I mean, don't you think we should be able to talk?"  
  
She looked back at the pizza. "Well... we might be able to talk... if there was something to talk about..."  
  
His eyes widened. That amounted to a mental slap on the face. At least as he saw it. "Is it me?" he said quietly.  
  
She sighed, but looked up at him, a bit... sentimentally? "No... not exactly. I think... I think we might just have run out of things to say to each other. I think we've... well, grown out of each other."  
  
"Grown out of each other?" His chest tightened. He didn't want to hear what she was saying, he couldn't agree with what she was saying... "We've only been going out for what, a few months?"  
  
No, he didn't want to hear it, but somehow, her words resonated with him. He had lost sight of all the things they'd had in common, and her wonderful differences seemed so much bigger. So much more devastatingly separating. And he'd kind of assumed she felt the same way. But admitting such an idea was very different than just thinking it. Admitting it made it irreversible.  
  
"I know. But I'm not taking time into account." She smirked, a tiny bit, trying to bring in some humor. "I'd always heard these things were based on emotions, not logic, and it sounds to me like you're trying to logic me out of this." There was a pause. "I'm assuming you do know where this is going?"  
  
Tom paused. How to answer this? He could tell the truth, and let this die right here, barely after it had begun. Or he could lie, and try to pull it along until it gained its sparkling appeal back from whatever had taken it. But what did he want? He had to admit to himself, his eye had been wandering more than usual, but his thoughts rested more on himself, and where he was going in life. And these thoughts had never included her. Maybe he should just admit that they were never meant to include her. "I guess I do." He said quietly. "I suppose you're right. But I want you to know I'm not saying that for the reasons you might think."  
  
She raised an eyebrow at him, questioningly. "I guess we just have grown out of each other. We've learned what we can from each other. But I want you to know I still care about you. You're a good friend, Daria, you always have been. And you're really a great girl. But I guess... you're just not meant to be my girl."  
  
A faux-shocked look spread across her face. "I was hoping perhaps I could be my own girl."  
  
He laughed, a richer laugh this time, perhaps because this time there was nothing to hide. "I guess you always will be your own girl. That's one of the things I sincerely hope will never change." He stood up, feeling released, renewed. "Well, I should leave you to your peace of pizza." She smirked at his pun, and he felt gratified.  
  
"You don't have to go." She told him, more good-naturedly than was normal for her, which, granted, wasn't much. "There's more peace now then there was when you got here."  
  
"I know." He smiled. "But I don't have to stay either." He walked out of the pizza shop.  
  
"You weren't half as bold, Daria, the last time I knew you." He whispered to himself. "I hope that's partially my fault. Maybe I did do you some good." And his sleep that night was more tranquil and dreamless than any night he remembered.  
  
(I sorely apologize for having to repost this, but the last time it came out all jumbled together. I didn't rewrite anything, but you may want to reread it because it's clearer this time.) 


	2. And The Best Friend Says…

Finding Your Feelings  
  
And The Best Friend Says...  
  
"You two broke up?" She would have dropped her paintbrush, but over the years she'd gotten enough shocking news while painting ("I'm getting married again." Wind says. "I'm having another baby." Summer says. "I'm moving to Venezuela." Penny says.)  
  
"Yeah. I don't really know how it happened either." Daria was flipped upside-down over the edge of the bed, like she always did when she was in deep thought. She'd removed her jacket, because the A/C was on the fritz and it was blazing hot. Her glasses had kept slipping off her nose, so she'd removed them too. She looked strangely vulnerable: eyes wide with confusion at what she seemed to be so casually shrugging off, hair glistening and slightly wavy from the sweat, fingers curled around some imagined thing in the air in front of her, gesticulating as she spoke. "We were just sitting there, and he asked why I wasn't talking..." she trailed off, as she'd done many times in the last 15 minutes of trying to explain.  
  
"You know, I can't believe you ruined MY chance at him only to dump him." Jane's smirk was present in her voice. "'Cause you just KNOW I have this weakness for rich snobs with wandering eyes."  
  
Daria gave a small twitch of the lip, which Jane knew was as close to a smirk as Daria usually got. "Yeah I'm sorry about that. He was the best snob I've ever known. I just hope you can recover."  
  
Jane swooned dramatically and put a hand to her forehead. Daria chuckled.  
  
When Jane righted herself, she saw Trent in the doorway. She almost panicked, because she knew that if Trent came in Daria would never finish her story. She gave Trent her best 'Be Silent!' look, which he usually ignored when Daria was around, but this time he nodded and moved to the side of the door, out of sight.  
  
Luckily, without her glasses on, and concentrating so intently on her fingers, Daria didn't catch any of their exchange. She continued "I just told him that I wasn't talking because we were running out of things to say. And he... he agreed! We just decided we had grown too far apart. And it ended civilly. I'm kind of disappointed. I was hoping for the fireworks you two had."  
  
"Well, you don't really have another friend for him to kiss, do you?" Jane joked, but inwardly, she flinched a little. That spot was still a bit raw, but she didn't want Daria to know that.  
  
Daria sighed. "Yeah... I guess..."  
  
"What made you call it off? I mean, is there a new MAN in your life?" Jane wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.  
  
Daria almost jumped. "Um... You might say that." Jane, a bit surprised, dropped her foolish expression and began to listen seriously. She didn't expect that there might actually be someone. "It's more like... someone already in my life... that I didn't consider before. So, now, I'm considering."  
  
Jane almost gasped. ((No. No no no. I must be misunderstanding.))  
  
Daria sighed. "I just... I didn't see a possibility before. And now... Now they're all that's on my mind. I can't clear my head of them. So I'm gonna see what my options are now. And then, hopefully, I can do something about it."  
  
Jane's face was set, overly calm, far too unaffected. Her head was screaming. ((No. She isn't talking about ME, is she? I've had enough with questioning my sexuality already. I'm STRAIGHT. I like GUYS. She can't do this to our friendship... Have I been sending the wrong signals? Shit shit SHIT.))  
  
Jane was completely off course, but Daria didn't realize it. She was thinking herself. ((I can't tell her it's Trent. I get enough jabs about crushing on him forever ago that if she realized I still liked him, I'd be swimming in snide comments.))  
  
There was a long silence.  
  
And then, what Trent thought was ((This sounds like a really good time to come in.))  
  
He sauntered in casually (like he always did) and said "Hey."  
  
Both girls were shocked out of their separate reveries. Daria "Eeek!"ed loudly and tumbled forward off the bed. Jane dropped her paintbrush and knocked half a can of bright purple paint over trying to get out of Daria's way.  
  
When they had picked themselves up off the floor, and Daria had put her glasses on, they bought shot him deadly looks.  
  
"What?" he mumbled. "I just said Hey." 


	3. Silences, I Have Misconstrued

Finding Your Feelings

(Wow it's been awhile since I've written here, but the plot fell off my brain tracks. I didn't want to write something that sounded forced. I just hope I haven't lost all my fans! Well, lets get on with the show then.)

Silences, I Have Misconstrued

Trent didn't know what to say. His sister and her best friend were both glaring daggers at him, and all he'd tried to do was break what seemed like an awkward silence. And now another such silence was encroaching because of him. Should he speak again, or wait? Turns out the choice was taken out of his hands.

"Well then. Hey." Janey replied.

"What has you two so uptight?"

The glance Daria and Jane gave each other was charged with fright and apprehensiveness. Their emotions were the same, but their thoughts were very different.

Daria thinks: ((What can I say? Now Jane knows there's someone, and I think I said too much. What if they find me out? What will I do if he knows?))

While Jane thinks: ((What can I say? "Oh, nothing much Trent, but its just that, now that I've recovered from my own questioning of my sexuality, my best friend thinks she's fallen in love with me." That's usually not what comes up in casual conversation.))

"Nothing." They end up replying in unison. Jane jumped up nervously, muttering something about "getting a towel to clean up this paint", leaving Daria alone with Trent, the object of both her confusion and reluctant desire.

"So, you broke up with Tom?" Trent said conversationally, trying to not convey the fascination he had in the topic. He wasn't sure why, but the idea piqued his interest. He had so stalwartly refused to think of Daria as anything but a friend, almost a sister herself, that the emotions he had for her, he was pretty much incapable of recognizing as attraction. But that was, after all, his own choice. And his own fault.

"Yeah. I did." She was fiddling nervously with the pull of her zipper, not looking him in the eyes.

"Well? Why?" He felt a stirring in his chest, a strange warmth that he tried to ignore.

"Um." She made the mistake of looking up at his face. His large grey eyes felt like they pierced to her soul. She wanted to spill everything. Confess her undying love, like some bad romance novel. Except she didn't know if love was what it was. She wanted to think of herself as above empty attraction… but he was, in all honesty, very sexy. And she didn't want it to be just that. Her cheeks flushed, then burned, just at the thought.

She wanted out. She mumbled an apology and farewell, pushing by him, feeling guilty even at that brief contact. She ran out the door, forgetting she'd yet to say goodbye to Jane. She didn't care.

Trent just stood in the hall, staring at the door she'd just run out of, as Jane came up behind him with a towel held limply in her hand. She saw the open front door and sighed.

"Trent, we have to talk. I think I have a problem."


	4. Breaking The Wrong News

Finding Your Feelings

Trent sat on the living room couch, trying to look Janey in the eye, but he found his mission… well, to be cliché, impossible. She was looking anywhere, everywhere, in the room BUT at her brother.

"You think she's gay?"

Jane jumped, a guilty look on her face. "I didn't say that." And then, realizing how that sounded, "I mean, not that it would be completely wrong if she was, but… the problem is Trent, I think she likes me!"

Trent sighed. "And what exactly did she say to make you think that?" he was trying his best to reason her out of this conclusion, but with the evidence she claimed to have, it sounded all too true.

"I asked her if there was a new man in her life, and she said something about there being someone there that she hadn't considered 'in that way' before, and now she's considering them." Jane was doing her best to quote verbatim. She too wanted her reasoning to be faulty.

But neither of them could find a hole in Jane's conclusion.

So, after a few awkward hours of deliberating, Jane decided to go for a run. "I need to get this out of my system, somehow." She tried to explain, but Trent just nodded: she didn't need a reason for running, anymore than he needed a reason for playing his guitar.

Which was, in fact, what he planned to do as soon as she left. But he was interrupted.

"Hello?" he answered the phone apathetically, knowing that there were only a few people to which he'd want to talk, and few of them had phones.

"Um… hey, Trent." Daria.

Well damn. He HAD to talk to her. He owed it to Janey to try to cut down any awkward attempts on her behalf to enthrall his sister. It was only right.

"Look, Daria, Janey isn't here right now, but I think we need to talk."

"Um… okay." Daria wished she could be more eloquent.

"I talked to Janey…"

"You did?" ((Oh, shit. She's already figured it out. She's already told him. I can never show my face over there again.))

"Yeah. And I think we need to… clarify some things." Trent's vocabulary was failing him. He wanted to break to Daria gently that Jane… well, Jane just wasn't interested.

"Oh? Clarify?" ((This is the inevitable turn-down, Daria. Brace yourself.))

"Well, yeah. Jane thinks… well, and I think too, that you're just… confused. You need some time to think things out, you know. Get things put straight." Trent slapped himself mentally for the connotations the last statement might have. "What I mean is… some, well, avenues you may be… thinking of pursuing… well, they just aren't… open to you right now. There are people around you who care about you, but aren't prepared to, you know… get involved. That's all. And me and Jane think that… some people make better friends. That's all. I mean, nothing really. But… something to think about."

Daria was afraid to speak, for fear that the tears streaming down her face would be apparent in her words. Oh, God yes, he new, and he'd shut her down in what was, perhaps, the nicest possible way. But it still stung. It felt like he'd pulled out her heart, just to wave it in front of her face and show her how faulty it was. She didn't want this, she didn't need this. How could she ever talk to him again? How could she ever talk to Jane again? She didn't know.

"Daria?" his voice sounded concerned, and that, she felt, mocked her pain. She silently swallowed her tears for a reply.

"Yeah. I heard you." Her voice was a bit more steely than originally intended, but she found that a little spite made her feel all the better. "I heard you quite clearly. Don't bother having Jane call back. I won't be home later. I'll see her on Monday."

She slammed down the phone. "Maybe." She whispered through gritted teeth.

Trent sighed. Somewhere, he knew, wires had gotten crossed. That had not gone as well as he planned.


	5. Outside Input

Finding Your Feelings

Outside Input

Daria knew this was the last resort of a desperate girl, but she did not care. She was desperate, and this was the last resort. She didn't have anything else to do.

So she knocked.

"Yes?" an all too perky voice answered her. She sighed, and braced herself for the inevitable ordeal.

"Quinn, are you busy?"

The door opened. Quinn was surprisingly dressed down for a Saturday evening, just a grey sweat shirt with matching pants. Daria was surprised to see Quinn's initial expression of annoyance at being disturbed morph into something… like pity? "Well, I WAS doing my yoga, but I think I can squeeze you in. Come in here so we can talk." Daria had had no intention of being dragged into the chamber of pink girly things, but Quinn pulled her in without warning.

"Don't you have, like, a date tonight or something?" Daria asked, a bit bewildered, and frankly, not quite ready to say what she'd come to say.

"Well, I did have a date with Greg, but I found out he booked with me only because Sandy turned him down, so of course I had to cancel." She rattled off. She then shot Daria a raised-eyebrowed look . "But that's not what you came here to ask, is it?"

"No. I need to talk to you… about Jane." She stopped herself from finishing.

"And…?" Damn you, Quinn!

"And Trent."

"I knew it! I just knew it. Spill."

-

"So," Jane opened the door to her house, feeling sweaty and exhausted, but somehow refreshed. She went to sit on a chair facing the couch where her brother was napping. "TRENT!" She yelled.

Just loud enough to rouse him, of course. He stirred, mumbled, and then rolled over, pitching himself off the couch to her great amusement.

"What do you want, Janey?" He growled at her. He'd only been a sleep for a few minutes. It was all so unfair.

"Did you talk to her?"

Oh. That. "Well yeah. But I get the feeling something was wrong with her."

Jane snorted. "Of course something was wrong with her! You had to tell her that I'm just not open for that kind of experimentation. Especially not with someone I care about that much as a friend. You did tell her that, didn't you?" She eyed him suspiciously.

"Well, not in so many words, but yes." He paused. "She's angry with you."

"I had figured she would be. But it had to be done." Jane sighed, in a manner matching Trent's own so well that he was continually amazed by it. "Well, I'm going upstairs. Don't bother me until I come down." She stood up. "Even then, I'd hesitate to bother me, if I were you."

And she left him alone to his own introspection.

He hadn't taken the news as easily as Jane had thought. It had taken a lot of his effort to hide from her how he felt. Because he felt… weird.

He didn't WANT her to be gay. And at first he'd shrugged it off, thinking he was wanting it that way cause Janey wanted it that way. But he could only hide from himself so long.

((You don't want her gay, you dumbass, because you want her.))

And he'd found it to be true. He'd spent hours since Janey's "revelation" thinking about the implications of it. He couldn't stop thinking about how many times in the past he'd found himself attracted to her and had hid it even from himself.

His memories were full of moments of her. Moments when the sun had caught her braided hair just so, turning it into a brilliant plait of burnished copper. Moments when she'd laughed and he'd heard music dancing in her voice. Time and again, he'd wanted to forget that this was Daria, Janey's friend, the coolest "high-schooler" he knew (something he constantly said to put up a barrier between them), but he'd always denied that urge. Because it meant that he wanted her to be something more to him. Something he didn't think was right, or even possible, because she was Janey's best friend.

And know, she wanted to be Janey's girlfriend. And he was jealous, oh so jealous, because by all rights, she should be his.

He'd come to that conclusion, and there hadn't been a second since then that he hadn't wanted to beat his head in. Cause it wasn't right or fair, to anyone, for him to feel that way.

His heart didn't seem to care what was right or fair.

It only cared about Daria. And so, he couldn't say a word. He'd hurt her enough today, taking Jane away from her like that, that he couldn't bear to burden her with him too.

He just wanted to sleep.


End file.
